Review – King’s Cage – No Time for Tiny Bookshelves

Book Review

King’s Cage by Victoria Aveyard

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: HarperTeen

Total Pages: 528

Description

In this breathless third installment to Victoria Aveyard’s bestselling Red Queen series, allegiances are tested on every side. And when the Lightning Girl’s spark is gone, who will light the way for the rebellion?

Mare Barrow is a prisoner, powerless without her lightning, tormented by her lethal mistakes. She lives at the mercy of a boy she once loved, a boy made of lies and betrayal. Now a king, Maven Calore continues weaving his dead mother’s web in an attempt to maintain control over his country—and his prisoner.

As Mare bears the weight of Silent Stone in the palace, her once-ragtag band of newbloods and Reds continue organizing, training, and expanding. They prepare for war, no longer able to linger in the shadows. And Cal, the exiled prince with his own claim on Mare’s heart, will stop at nothing to bring her back.

When blood turns on blood, and ability on ability, there may be no one left to put out the fire—leaving Norta as Mare knows it to burn all the way down.

My Thoughts

Oh, I had such mixed feelings about reading this. I adored Red Queen but had little love for Glass Sword (check out my review). Thus, the conundrum! My inability to not finish a story when I’ve already committed so much time to it and the fact that it was just one more book eventually won me over, and I’m happy that I did pick it up. The series was redeemed in my eyes, and this was a solid end to the story.

There were a lot of things that shocked me about the characters in this book. First, MARE WASN’T NEARLY AS TERRIBLE AS SHE WAS IN GLASS SWORD. Everyone, rejoice with me please, because she seriously was terrible in the second book. Like, I really hated her. She was moody and whiney and awful to have to listen to. Second, EVANGELINE TOTALLY REDEEMED HERSELF. This was quite unexpected, I never really thought I’d be even slightly fond of her, but it happened, and I liked it. Third, WE REALLY GOT A DEEP DIVE AND INSIDE LOOK INTO THE TWISTED ALIEN THAT IS MAVEN. As a self-proclaimed “can’t have Maven completely” person, this book allowed me to redeem a bit of my dignity back because we finally understood a little more about why Maven is the way that he is and what drives him to be so… unique.

The story did tend to drag a little bit when Mare was imprisoned by Maven. There was a lot of important development of her relationship with Maven and understanding him as a character that happened during that imprisoned time, but it was a bit tiring to read about after a while. The book redeemed itself from this slowness by offering some pretty wicked fights and action scenes!

I’m not sure I enjoyed the balance of points of view throughout the book. There was a lot of Mare chapters with chapters from other characters, like the Scarlet Guard and Evangeline, sprinkled throughout. At first I thought it was too focused on Mare’s POV, and that we needed to know more about what was going on with everyone else (especially the Scarlet Guard), but I also liked the unpredictability and not knowing what might happen next because we didn’t really know what the Guard was up to while Mare was imprisoned. My feelings for this seem to switch back and forth, I really could go either way.

As always, this being the last book, I expected a spectacular ending. Although at first I did not like it (too open ended and did not invoke the emotion that I wanted it to), it has since grown on me. I don’t want to say too much and spoil it for anyone, so I’ll just say: HELL YEAH GIRL POWER.

Final thoughts: Nothing can be perfect, so I won’t hold my feelings for Glass Sword against the full series. Overall it was pretty spectacular, and I would recommend it to fantasy lovers, although I would caution to be patient. 🙂

What Do You Think